First Defeat
by disillusionist9
Summary: War isn't a Christmas gift. It doesn't end with a few strips of tape and a pretty bow. War is a hydra, and there's always another head to fight. Hermione is tired of wielding the sword after decades of fighting for what she knows is right, and leans on the man who has been there for every gory moment. ONESHOT, mind the warnings within DRAMIONE


[a/n] October 1st, 2016 - _requested by **jasperandgemma** on tumblr. **First Defeat - Noah Gundersen** was the song prompt._

 _This one evolved, and it includes some sensitive themes. I want to leave this vague, but for those of you that may have a trigger regarding losing a child, please read with caution._

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 _It's the first defeat / It cuts you to your bones / Knocks you off your feet / And you discover that home / Is not a person or a place / But a feeling you can't get back_

The smell of hexes still lingered in the air, embedded in the carpet and coating the tongues of anyone who entered the room until all they could taste was acrid magical residue. Everyone thought the battle on the Hogwarts grounds was the end of it; papers even titled it "The Final Battle".

That should have been their first clue.

Hunkering down in what remained of a manor basement somewhere in Wales, the motley crew of Dumbledore's Army alumni and their various human detritus waited for the next word from their contacts in the Ministry. Hermione watched Neville pull a face, the scars on his right cheek contorting, as he took a long gulp of water from the canteen they passed around. Half of their members held damaged or broken wands. Each splinter was worth it's weight in galleons, though most of them practiced wandless magic daily; supporting the illusion they were growing weaker was more important than pretty wands.

Neville passed the canteen to Harry, who always insisted on eating and drinking last, and promptly dumped the rest of the water over his head and scrubbed. Debris and rubble coated his fingers in a dusty film. He stood to walk away and shake the excess off like a dog, dark splotches landing on the stone walls nearby, disappearing almost as quickly as they landed.

"Where is he?" Ron grumbled, his hand threaded tightly into Parvati's. The two had bonded over the gruesome death of Lavender Brown, both feeling partly responsible.

Hermione lay a calming hand on his shoulder from where she stood behind him. "He'll be here. Still ten minutes to rendezvous."

Ron placed his hand over Hermione's and squeezed her fingers. The callouses on the pad of his thumb sent shivers over her arms, but he still had all ten fingers, thanks to Hannah's quick work. After years of growing up together, and over a year on the run, he could read her impeccably. Hermione was thankful for his perceptiveness, the way he knew what comfort she needed, but was a great deal more appreciative of the subtlety he applied to it.

With Harry constantly on edge, he didn't need to worry about her any more than he already did.

She felt more than heard the pop of Apparition above their heads before the shuffle of muffled shoes broke their silence. She knew he could have arrived completely silently, but was providing them a warning he'd arrived. The last time their contact snuck up on them, he was bed bound for two hours before he could go back to daily life.

"Sorry I'm early," Draco said as his shoes appeared down the stairs.

His hair was slicked back, and grown past his shoulders now. A thin line crossed over the bridge of his nose and across one eye. He'd always had bright silver irises, a byproduct of genetic cross and in-breeding Hermione had always itched to study, but the milky glow of the right one betrayed its partial blindness. Her left hand clenched at the memory of that raid, and how she'd held his face together while stitching him back into one piece as best she could. Though he'd never openly accused her for the injury, she read it in the way he always turned that side slightly away from her.

"Early is perfect," Harry said, coming over to shake Draco's hand. "We need all the preparation we can manage. Do you need the hawthorn?"

Draco held out a palm for his old wand, the loyalty blurred between himself and Harry after a year of working side by side. Five years they'd been partners in Auror training, Harry's good word pulling Draco alongside himself, Ron, and Neville on the fast track through the Academy. There was a distinct advantage in sharing that wand between them.

"Just for a few, Potter. Everyone ready to go down?"

With emphatic nods, the choking feeling of post-battle smells and static growing past uncomfortable levels for the group who'd hidden out in this basement for ten hours, every member stood. Blaise reached out and assisted Pansy in standing, the pair gluing themselves together as soon as they were upright. Draco walked over to shake Blaise's hand and exchange quick congratulations to the two, before walking with Harry to the door they'd all snuck glances towards over the last few hours.

"My great-grandfather built this home as a means to...accentuate his trade deals," Draco explained, speaking to fill the silence it seemed. The hawthorn wand hung lazily at his side. "I've not been here since before fourth year, but my father assured me the wards are the same."

"Even after twenty years?" someone asked softly.

"Yes," Draco said, flicking his gaze in the direction of the voice.

Hermione watched Cho nod slowly, her body leaning heavily into Angelina Johnson's for support.

As soon as the muttered sounds of an incantation left Draco's lips, her focus was entirely on him. This was magic passed down through pureblooded families, not taught in Hogwarts, since blood magic was decidedly a grey area. She only watched the way his fingers spun the wand first counterclockwise for three turns, then clockwise in an infinity symbol, out of pure academic interest, pushing away any memories she associated with them.

The entire group stood still, even slowing their breathing to keep the room quiet for Draco's work, the tattoo runes under his left ear marking him as one of the Ministry's Curse Breakers. She knew he wore the badge with pride, something he'd worked for during Auror training, but the scratches marring the ink made a part of her wince each time she saw it.

For three years, everything was going so well. Perfect, even.

Too well.

Everything went to shit once Bellatrix died in Azkaban. Ministry workers started dropping dead like exterminated pixies at their desks, no rhyme or reason to it. Hermione could still feel the rush of robes falling through her fingers when her Unspeakable partner Susan Bones collapsed. Not even a convulsion, or discoloration of skin or irises, to lead the Healers anywhere. Walking amongst the corpses in the morgue and watching how the bodies rested, Hermione couldn't stop thinking about when they would lose electricity during storms at her grandparent's cabin. No response, and no explanation for why the power went out until the next morning. A tree fell on a transformer, or a power line dislodged during a strong gust of wind, perhaps. But she could never find the felled tree or sparking line.

As suddenly as that started, it stopped. But the hysteria had taken hold. Fingers were pointed, wands drawn, and hasty laws passed while men and women, young and old, pureblood and muggleborn alike, dropped.

Sticking to the clinical facts and data kept her throat from closing at the memories of all they'd lost from something like a plague.

"We'll be safe through here for the night, and be able to move some of you to Spain and France in the morning," Harry said once the plain wooden door opened. Hermione felt a twinge of hurt that he knew what was beyond the door, but shoved the emotion back where it came from. "You'll feel a tingle walking through, and I can't tell you where this tunnel leads. Secret Kept. But in the morning we'll be poised to take down those bastards."

Ah, yes. The crooked Wizengamot members who'd cashed in on a country in turmoil. Some of the old DA would need to leave Britain for a time, while this bunker they were headed into, a portal to some undisclosed place, would house the ones remaining to fight.

There weren't horcruxes this time, just politics. Each person hiding in the bunker still held the title of some Ministry job or another, but this was a coup, years of political combat proving they'd need more force.

And Hermione was sick and tired of it.

She made sure she was the final one to walk through, so she could pause by Harry and Draco standing by the doorway. Though she couldn't imagine what she looked like, moving her gaze to Harry, he understood what she silently implored of him.

"I'll get them settled, yeah?"

And he was gone, pulling the door shut to only leave a crack open, so Draco and Hermione could join them momentarily. She watched him go and squinted her eyes to try to see through the sliver. The air was thicker, and Hermione imagined it was the lack of other bodies in the room pulling it in and out of their lungs, filtering out the magical residue.

"When did you last lower your Occlumency, Hermione?" A warm hand brushed under her chin to move her gaze to his. "There are two popped blood vessels in your eyes."

Hermione was too tired to jerk away; too tired to do anything, really. "Don't remember."

"I'll meditate with you. You'll need to be able to sleep for tomorrow."

"I don't want to sleep, Draco," she said, hating her own body for betraying her with a quivering lower lip. The tone of her voice remained deadpan.

"I promised I'd never cast another spell on you again unless you asked me to. And, before you storm off, I'm not threatening that I will. Think of it as me imploring your intelligent nature to actually act like you have one."

His teasing surprised a laugh out of her, a sob not far behind. "Every time I sleep, I see…I see the night you lost your vision. Draco, I can't. Don't make me live through that again."

Draco lowered his hand, the warmth lingering on her too dry, too cold skin, parched from the muted life behind Occlumency. Instead of focusing on the feeling on her face or the stare of his eyes, she traced the small curls of the hair at his nape, how they framed his tattoo and got caught in the single earring hanging there. She allowed herself to be hypnotized by the way the scale from a Chimera swing back and forth on a silver chain, remembering again the heavy protections laced into the jewelry all Curse Breaker's wore. Her mind emptied easily this way, this laser focus. The action was so natural, she didn't realize until Draco repeated himself that she'd been completely gone from the moment.

"How can I convince you I don't blame you?"

Hermione's eyes stung from staying open too long, and they fluttered when she caught up on the blinks she missed. "Please stop."

"My eye?" Draco said, partly ignoring her and partly disobeying, "I don't care about it. I don't need it. You think I would rather have my eye than...Hermione, you can't keep pushing me away. What happened that night _was not your fault_."

"Draco, please, you don't-"

"Please don't say that I don't understand, because you haven't let me!" His hands rose to clutch her shoulders, squeezing on just the wrong side of painful, but she didn't back away.

"But it's not your fault, either!" Hermione said.

Draco winced at the still deadpan tone of her voice. "The only person who can be put at fault is-"

"Dead. Yes, you do recall I was there when you-"

"I've not killed anyone since, I promise, and you-"

"Stop it!" Hermione's chest heaved and eyes stung, the hairs on her arms standing straight up when she realized what they were doing. "I can't fight about this anymore. You lost your eye and we lost...oh, god. Everyone has lost someone in this wretched war."

His grip had loosened while they rapidly spoke over each other, but instead of allowing her to pull away and duck into the room with the others, Draco drew her into him. Her curls, shorn short in a fit of despair, cushioned his chin as her head automatically tucked under it. She shook as though she'd bathed in a frozen lake. Her resolve splintered and cracked. Only a year had passed but it was a year without Draco holding her, and a year since an ambush on one of their meetings destroyed the life they'd created together.

"I didn't lose part of my vision that night, Hermione," Draco whispered into her hair. "I lost you. I lost our family."

Hermione didn't respond, just focused on her breathing, her cheek resting on a tear-soaked spot on Draco's shirt. They were past words now. Decades spanned between the end of a war they'd barely managed to end on the same side, and theirs was a love built through sharing silent struggles.

Draco convinced her with slow movements and nudges to join him and the rest of the troupe in the safe house, not breaking contact with her skin for more than a few moments at a time. The novelty of their romance was absent with these trusted friends and the tension of what lay before them dulled any joyous exclamations at their reunited stance, however recently rekindled. Draco led her to a corner of safety, holding her as the walls of Occlumency finally released from her mind, the decimation of protection against her pain reverberating between their meditative connection like the iron bars breaking around a barrel of explosives.

No matter how much it hurt to hold him near, an open wound exposed to flame, the warmth of the embers was worth the burns.

A many headed hydra loomed before them, and they intended to strike the heart rather than remove a single head before the sun set the next day. But, for tonight, they had each other in a suspended moment in time, fighting to regain the feeling of home and safety in their world.


End file.
